Picking the Perfect Petpet - Part III

Welcome back! This is the last article in a three part series on choosing the ideal Petpet for your Neopet. If you haven't read parts one and two, go find them immediately! Seriously, why are you still here? All right, all right, we'll do a brief summary, just in case something happened and the servers hosting back issues of the Neopian Times were taken over by the Meepits. Things like that do happen, you know, so best to be prepared.

Is your Neopet feeling lonely, yearning for a friend to keep him or her company while you're out restocking or sleeping? Does he or she have a tendency to “adopt” plants or even rocks, taking care of them and talking or singing to them? Have you ever caught your Neopet trying to break into the Kadoatery at night, hoping to take one of the little mewing things home? If this is the case, your Neopet definitely needs a Petpet.

But how do you choose just one Petpet out of the more than four hundred currently available? That's what I'm here for. I'll assist you in picking out a Petpet that will have something in common with your Neopet right off the bat, which will help them to become fast friends. For your benefit, this guide will also help you choose one that will coordinate well, so you won't feel like you wasted your Neopoints on all those perfectly matching wearables and expensive paint brushes.

Looking Back...

To keep things simple, I've listed three main categories, or methods, of matching a Petpet to your Neopet. These are:

Color Matching

Species Matching

Theme Matching

We've already gone over Color Matching and Species Matching, so I'll just quickly review. Color Matching means that you choose a Petpet that has the same colors as your Neopet. Don't just go by paint brush color names, though. A Faerie Seti is grey, black and yellow, which will NOT match your Faerie Draik (teal and blue). The Faerie Seti would be a better match for a Fire Gelert, a Fire Jetsam or even a Shadow Eyrie. Your Faerie Draik would be better off with a Frillabon, which has the same color scheme of teal and blue. Make sure you notice ALL the different colors on your Neopet, and try to match as many colors as possible with your Petpet to get the best possible match.

With Species Matching, the goal is simple: find a Petpet whose physical characteristics most closely match those of your Neopet's species. If you have a Flotsam, for instance, take note of his or her defining features. Flotsams have a finned tail, a nose-less snout, a dorsal fin and flippers. So, a Delphin would be an excellent choice. Delphins have all of the above characteristics, plus they also have a jewel on their forehead, which slightly mirrors the horn that Flotsams have on their own foreheads. If you can't find a perfect match for your Neopet, don't stress over it. Just try to find a Petpet that has some of the same features (number of legs, wings, horns, etc.), and the same basic body structure.

Theme-atic Ending

That leads us to the third and final category: Theme Matching. While it's not as straightforward as matching colors or species, I personally think that Theme Matching is the most fun and rewarding of the three. With this method, you can mix and match the other two categories at will, and throw in a few other considerations as well!

Theme Matching can be a little difficult to describe, as it's largely based on your own personal preferences, so let me start with an example. Let's say you have a Maraquan Acara, and you've given him or her a nice Underwater Background and an Aquatic Arrangement trinket. You could say that your theme is something like “Underwater Lair”, or if you want to keep it really simple, aquatic. To complement this theme, you would NOT want to give your Acara a Feepit. That wouldn't match at all, in fact, it might make people worry that the Feepit was drowning! No, you would want to pick some kind of underwater-ready Petpet, for sure.

Here's where the mixing and matching comes in. You might want to pick a Petpet that's green, like a Green Searex, to match both the theme (aquatic) and you Neopet's colors (green). Or, you might want to choose a more tentacled Petpet like the Octorna, to match the species more. If you like, you can even go all out and match the theme (aquatic), color (green) AND species (something with tentacles) by getting a Green Tentacle for your Acara! See how nicely that all ties together? Perfect!

Using a theme to choose your Petpet can be lots of fun. If you like to customize your Neopet with lots of clothes, accessories and such, then you're probably already used to matching things up this way. Just take the theme your Neopet is currently sporting and loving. Say perhaps your using a “Tropical Beach” theme, maybe an Island Cybunny with a Bucket of Sand trinket and a Mystery Island Summer Background. Now, just expand it out to his or her Petpet. Maybe an Island Kimbi would be nice, or even an Island Snorkle!

Or, maybe you and your Neopet just aren't into all the customization stuff. Fashion just isn't that big of a deal to you. Does your Neopet participate in roleplaying? If so, pick a Petpet that matches his or her favorite roleplay style! For instance, if your Neopet is a shy, quiet girl who goes to Neoschool and likes soft, fluffy things like plushies, how about a Pink Faellie? Soft, fluffy, pink, AND they have timid, shy looking face. So you see, a “theme” can revolve around anything you and your Neopet would like. Are your creative juices flowing yet?

Here are a few examples of some different kinds of themes (listed in order as Neopet, backgrounds and accessories), and Petpets that would go nicely with them:

Before we wrap things up, I just want to mention that there are lots of other ways to pick a Petpet for your Neopet. You don't HAVE to pick one of the three methods we've discussed. After all, your Petpet should be just as special and unique as you and your Neopet. Do you have a sense of humor? If you do, and you happen to have a Pteri as well, it would be hilarious to give it a Wadjet. Just make sure he knows it's a friend, and not a meal! What if you want to do a tribute to a favorite movie? Giving a Walking Carpet Petpet to an appropriately named galaxy-hopping, princess-saving Neopet would be perfect. A Plushie Hasee or Plushie Pfish is perfect for any Baby Neopet; they'll be sure to be inseparable. And hey, if you want, you can even raise a few eyebrows with an “Opposites Attract” theme, by giving a Darigan Gangee to a Faerie Cybunny!

As you can see, the possibilities are endless. All that matters is that you and your Neopet are happy with your choice. I hope you've enjoyed these articles, and if you would like to see them all again in the future, they will soon be posted on the petpage for Khivara, my beautiful Flotsam on a side account (who, by the way, is best friends with her Delphin Petpet, Echo).

So go forth now, with your newfound knowledge, and find that perfect Petpet!